John Piper
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A Prophetic Call to Teenagers to Freedom From Culture
I am writing for the liberation of teenagers. I write to challenge teenagers to “live as people who are free” (1 Peter 2:16, ESV). Be wise and strong and free from the slavery of culture-conformity. To put it another way, I am calling teenagers to a radical, wartime lifestyle. The Creation of “Teenagers” As teenagers, …
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Getting Faith From Your Head to Your Heart
Again and again I have been asked: How do I get my faith from my head to my heart? The great Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, may not answer in so many words, but his experience points us in the right direction. Dostoevsky is an “ideological novelist.” That is, ideas dominate and drive his characters. Their ideas become …
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What Christian Unity Is and Isn’t
Unity among two or more people gets its virtue entirely from something else. Unity itself is neutral until it is given goodness or badness by something else. So if Herod and Pilate are unified by their common scorn for Jesus (Luke 23:12), this is not a good unity. But if Paul and Silas sing together …
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You Can Believe the Promises of God and Still Be Eternally Lost
It is possible to believe the promises of God, and have the assurance of salvation, and yet be lost forever. Professing Christians With False Assurance This possibility is implied in Matthew 7:22, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and …
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6 Ways to Get More Revelation From the Word of God
I created three labs teaching through Matthew 6:24–34 on anxiety. My objective was not just to understand how Jesus helps us overcome anxiety, but also to draw out six lessons for how to read the Bible for ourselves. With this short series, I have methodology, theology and application in mind. Here are the six lessons …
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John Piper: Cancer Is a Parable About Sin
All human suffering, especially the suffering of the Son of God, is meant to portray to dull souls the unimaginable moral ugliness of sin and the unimaginable offensiveness of sin to God. That’s why there is suffering in the world, according to Romans 8:20. God subjected the creation to futility, not because it wanted to …
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John Piper: 10 Impacts of Romans 9 on My Life
The ninth chapter of the book of Romans has had a profound affect on my life. Here are 10 reasons why: 1. Romans 9 makes me confident that God’s Word will not fail and all the promises of Romans 8 will prove true for me, even in the worst suffering. 2. Romans 9 makes me …
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How Can You Really Know the Bible Is True?
How can average people, with no scholarly training, and little time to invest in historical studies, know for sure that God has spoken in the Bible? Historically and biblically, one answer that has been given is: “the internal testimony of the Spirit.” What is it? Let’s consider John Calvin’s use of the term, and the …
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Why You Should Pray for Those Who Abuse You
Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). He also said, “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27–28). Whether someone “persecutes” or “abuses” or “hates” or “curses” us, we are to pray for them. They may …
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Finding God’s Specific Call and Passion
Turning 69 earlier this month, which soberingly means entering my seventieth year and eighth decade, makes me tremble with joyful eagerness not to waste my life. As the year and the decade turn, I have been thinking about Jesus’s final words, “Teach [all the nations] to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Not just …
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John Piper Offers Reasons Why ‘Selma’ Movie Matters Today
The recent movie Selma tells the story of the civil rights efforts to gain the right of unencumbered voting for blacks in Alabama. As the movie begins, the raw juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Jr.’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and the deaths of four black girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church of …
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Do Actions Really Speak Louder Than Words?
The same apostle who said, “Let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18), also recorded Jesus saying, “I say these things in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13) and “The words that I speak to you are spirit and are …
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10 Promises to Strengthen Your Heart
How do you do a task in the strength of another? How do you exert your will to do something in such a way that you are relying on the will of another to make it happen? Here are some passages from the Bible that press this question on us: “By the Spirit put to …
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Live Life With One Passionate Purpose
The opposite of wasting your life is living life by a single God-exalting, soul-satisfying passion. The well-lived life must be God-exalting and soul-satisfying because that is why God created us (Is. 43:7; Ps. 90:14). And passion is the right word (or, if you prefer, zeal, fervor, ardor, blood-earnestness) because God commands us to love Him with all …
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What Is the Lesson From Newtown School Massacre?
Murdering a human being is an assault on God. He made us in His own image. Destroying an image usually means you hate the imaged. Murdering God’s human image-bearer is not just murder. It’s treason—treason against the creator of the world. It is a capital crime—and more. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man …
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